The Italian government must present “within a few daysor” a series of additional measures to correct the 2019 and 2010 public accounts. Otherwise, the European infringement procedure it will be inevitable. The warning comes from the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, who spoke at the press conference after Ecofin, side by side with his German counterpart, Olaf Scholz. The EU economy and finance ministers – thus the 19 from the Eurozone, meeting on Thursday for the Eurogroup – confirm their support for evaluations by the European Commission, which on 5 June proposed to initiate proceedings against Italy for non-compliance with debt rules. The final word will be up to Ecofin on 9 July.
Our country therefore has little time to defuse a threat that would lead to commissioner of accounts for at least five years. "We have laid the foundations of what we will discuss, of the objectives of the negotiations", said the number one of the Italian Treasury, Giovanni Tria, after the meeting with EU commissioner Pierre Moscovici and the Ecofin meeting.
The minister is confident that to correct the trajectory of this year's accounts no additional measures will be needed: "We have to reach the indicated deficit, which is also compensating for the failure to achieve the 2018 target. How we achieve it does not imply a problem with new measures, we plan to achieve it without legislative changes".
To those who asked him if he will bring new data to Breuxelle by 9 July, Tria replied: “Of course, I don't carry small talk. More data will come out and I expect further improvement in terms of higher revenues and higher savings”.
Last April the government had written in Def is the 2019 deficit-GDP ratio would have reached 2,4%worse than the agreements signed in December with the Commission, in which there was talk of a 2,04%.
However, according to the Treasury, the figure will drop again in the next few months, until it stabilizes just over 2,1% at the end of the year. The improvement, worth 4-5 billion, would be even higher than the correction requested by Europe for the 2019 accounts, which is in the order of 3-4 billion. To determine it, higher tax revenues (thanks to the VAT boosted by electronic invoice), And profits and dividends of state-owned companies and savings on funds allocated for share 100 and basic income.
The problem is that, even if these accounts were plausible, they alone would not be enough to avert the infringement procedure. The main question concerns indeed the 2020 accounts, which are likely to be heavily busted. According to European calculations, in the absence of corrections next year the Italian public debt would exceed 135% of GDP, while the deficit would reach 3,5%, half a point above the Maastricht threshold.
Moreover, these calculations do not take into account the mountain of money that the Italian government seems determined to spend with the autumn maneuver: 23 billion to avoid VAT increases plus at least another dozen for the flat tax. These are the two items of expenditure around which the real political game is played.
In particular, the yellow-green government is divided on the coverage for the flat tax: Salvini would like to finance it in deficit, but Tria and Prime Minister Conte oppose it, also because such a tear would destroy any negotiations with Brussels.
But if the Italian government fell in July, any infringement procedure just launched by the EU would be interrupted, and then automatically reactivated with the formation of the new Italian government. But that would not happen before late autumn.
